Infusion of fluids, such as drugs and plasma, into a patient is commonplace in the medical field. Two common infusion methods are intravenous delivery of fluids by gravity and either intravenous or intraarterial delivery by actually pumping the fluids for delivery to the patient.
In pump delivery, an infusion pump is used to pressurize the fluid. Past devices often require a complex cassette mechanism which comes into direct contact with the fluid to be delivered.
However, peristaltic pumps acting upon in-line tubing segments have been used in this art. One example of a peristaltic pump, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,362, includes a back pressure valve to prevent gravity siphoning from the pumping chamber.
Another relatively simple pumping arrangement is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,142,524, in which a casette is provided with inlet and outlet valves to and from a pumping chamber. The pump presses a rubber diaphragm on the cassette to diminish the volume of the casette chamber by a known amount to deliver a predetermined quantity per pump stroke. An even simpler disposable element is disclosed in the pumping arrangement of U.S. Pat. No. 4,199,307, in which a pancake-shaped resilient pumping chamber is provided with upper and lower valves and an activating pumping piston which displaces a known volume on the pumping stroke. Yet another pump approach is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,322,201, which seeks to provide continuous, uninterrupted fluid flow by alternating between two pumping chambers, each of which employs the principle of the rolling diaphragm. A third rolling diaphragm chamber is employed for mechanically sensing pressure within the device for control purposes.
None of the foregoing art, however, possesses the advantages of the present invention in providing an extremely simple disposable element in combination with a relatively straightforward pumping action which is accurate and which provides sound and reliable pressure monitoring and self-checking diagnostics.